We have a nice stretch of weather ahead of us for several days so we made a plan to sail out to Long Island today with our friends. The winds were coming around from the north but only at 10 knots and only for the day. We raised the anchor at 8am and motored out of our hidey-hole in Crab Cay. We decided to take the inner-most passage southeast nearest the islands of Great Exuma and Little Exuma to get onto the bank heading towards Long. We were at high tide and had no less than 12 feet of water the whole way.

Once on our way we raised the mainsail, pulled out the headsail and turned off the engine. Aaaaaah! The wonderful sound of pure sailing! The winds were 8-10 knots, but just at a perfect angle on the beam to allow us to maintain 4-6 knots of boat speed. For about 7 hours we had a lovely sail, the best we’ve had in almost 2 years. No hurry, no worry. Even Luna came out when the motor stopped and joined us in the cockpit to see what this sailing thing was all about!

Once we got to Thompson Bay on Long Island we found a total of 40 boats here, more than twice as many as we’ve ever seen here. But this bay is huge and could easily hold 100 boats or more. We had dinner of pork chops on the grill and POC (fried Potatoes, Onions and Carrots) and watched a couple of our saved TV shows. All-in-all a very enjoyable day.